‘How much would it be?’
‘It’s masses. About four hundred.’ The immensity of the figure once it was spoken out loud suddenly made the request sound impossible. ‘I’ve found a place to do it,’ she concluded quietly.
Annie wrote the cheque in the italic handwriting Sal knew so well –
Four Hundred Pounds Only, Annie Sethrington
– and folded it as she handed it over.
‘I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can. Promise.’ Sal looked at the
piece of paper as if it were a treasured work of art. ‘You’ve saved my life.’
‘But Sal, you know we’re worried about you? Me and Ken. You just seem to be all over the place and – I know that this is going to make you annoyed – but you’re getting so drunk. We didn’t want to talk about it, but you must see that you’re pretty pissed a lot of the time.’
‘So is the loan going to mean that, now, you’re in charge of me? If so, forget it.’
‘Don’t be daft. I only want you to be all right.’
‘I am all right. I’m really all right now. Don’t worry.’ Sal was squinting up at the sky, where a bright shiny pinprick was leaving a vapour trail. ‘Hey. I’m really sorry about what I said about the baby. Of course that’s a lovely baby you’ve got there. I can see you and it in the garden with that pram. It’s just I couldn’t see me doing the same.’
Tania’s nose for error was as infallible as a sniffer dog’s. There was no room for mistakes when you were dealing with the launch of a big fragrance like Sinistre, snatched from their rivals in public relations. ‘Right under their noses it was. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t got to hit the ground racing like Zola Budd’ was how Tania had briefed the team. ‘We’ve got to knock the spots off Dior’s Poison.’
Lee had been put in charge of overseeing the catering. Female beauty journalists never ate a single canapé but it was nonetheless regarded as essential that the event be a display of luxury, every detail, from the tablecloths, to the platters, to the angle of the amaryllises in black crystal jars harnessed in the service of establishing the unique qualities of Sinistre
.
Lee had put together a list of caterers for Tania to consider, but his own favourite, Shooting Up, had failed at the first hurdle, unwisely suggesting a cocktail of chartreuse, rum and lime.
‘You lads get a terrific name like Sinistre to play with and you come up with something that stinks of some sleazy Jamaican joint.’
Tania’s face had become an unbecoming pink. After they’d been shown the door she turned to Lee. ‘What a bunch of plonkers.
Sinistre.
It needs lateral thinking. You’ve got the whole sinister thing but then you’ve got the old leftie connotations too – the left-handed oddball, Left bank … smack bang in the ball park. That’s the way to go.’
Lee didn’t let on that he’d been in the adjacent room when a member of the Sinistre team had briefed Tania with this interpretation of the name. As always, it was clear she preferred to present such insights as her own.
He pulled at the collar of his Adidas shirt, looking across the vast room they had turned into Sinistreland in search of Annie, who he spotted making some young kid go through the guest list for the umpteenth time.
‘We’ve just had a bit of a moment in the kitchens. Tans went ballistic over the fact she thought she could smell onions. It turned out they puréed a few shallots for the
jus
to dribble over the mini tartares. Honest. You’d think she’d discovered arsenic.’
‘You know she’s got her pet hates,’ Annie replied, without looking up from the typed pages. ‘Didn’t you brief the caterers?’
‘’Course I did.’ Lee turned away to fiddle with the bottles lined up on a plinth at the entrance, giant teardrops of dark glass which, when held up to the light, showed a fine cross-hatching. ‘You know Calvin’s launching his new pong here any day now, Obsession for Men. I’ve heard they’re spending millions. Anybody know what ours smells like?’
‘Don’t ask me. Luckily, it’s not my account. If I smell anything these days I feel nauseous. Tell you what, can you do me a favour and just run your eye down the list for a second?’
Annie walked through the huge door to the pavement outside. She didn’t want to be melodramatic – she was past the twelve weeks now and it was probably nothing – but the cramps had been getting worse all day. A taxi stopped outside. That must be Jean-Jacques Gratinard. She jumped back from the low wall where she had been resting. The Frenchman was flanked by three young women, their
faces denied any degree of natural skintone by heavy layers of foundation. Tania appeared in the doorway, her new Claude Montana jacket with its dramatic shoulder pads contrasting oddly with those silk trousers she loved. Annie was sure Montana hadn’t imagined the jacket looking that way. The effect was of a character in a children’s card game where you matched the top halves of people to their bottom halves.
‘
Bonsoir
, Jean-Jacques. Welcome to London. Traffic from Heathrow a bugger as always?’ Tania shooed the quartet inside, gesturing Annie to join them.
‘Annie, would you find Lee? I’m sure Jean-Jacques Gratinard would like to meet him and be talked through the evening.’ Tania had developed a reliable antenna for corporate men who surrounded themselves with an entourage of attractive young women but preferred their own sex. It was one of Lee’s many uses. He could be relied upon to pitch it perfectly: teasing, admiring and just the right side of flirtatious. Annie watched as Lee claimed his charge, brushing his fringe back from his forehead in a fey manner and guiding the client across the room with the expertise of a ballroom dancer. Her cramps were becoming sharper, as if there were a claw inside her, clenching and releasing, clenching again. The journalists and social celebrities now filling the room were becoming a background to the pain, which was sharply in focus.
She stood talking for as long as she could manage to a tedious raconteur, a veteran beauty editor (Lee had nicknamed her Just Press Go), before she had to escape, walking as quickly as she could without running to the small lavatories down the corridor. It took no more than a second to see the blood: great clots which streaked her legs as she stood up. She sat back down as she heard a couple of girls enter the room and then their chatter from the neighbouring stalls. Would the bleeding stop if she stayed still? She didn’t know what to do. Was this a miscarriage she was having, or a bleed? Should she be hurrying somewhere? It felt terrible. She waited for the two girls to leave before she emerged. In the far corner of the room, Lee was still with Jean-Jacques. ‘I’ve got to go. Tell you later,’
she hissed at him in passing. In the street, she discovered that she didn’t know
where
to go. Hospital or home? She was desperate to find Charlie. He’d know what to do. She got into a taxi, putting her hard square handbag underneath her to stop the blood getting on the seat.
Charlie had been brilliant, of course, ringing Mr Churston at home and making sure he got her into the hospital bed where she now lay, even though both she and Mr Churston had known there wasn’t really much point going to hospital.
‘Can’t do any harm to give her the once-over,’ the gynaecologist had suggested, as if the loss of the baby was a defect in a car. ‘I’m sorry. But it often happens with the first. You’ve got plenty of time. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong.’
Now she was here in this nowhere land of a hospital room with nothing to do but think about what had happened. She was unable to stop her thoughts going on an endless rewind over which she appeared to have no control. She remembered Sal’s words as they lay in the park. ‘It’s not safe to get all sentimental so soon.’ That was before she knew that Sal was pregnant too. That she wanted to get rid of that pregnancy, that baby. It just wasn’t fair. She knew that only small children thought that life would ever be fair but, all the same, it
wasn’t
fair. She had just lost her baby, a baby whom she had already fallen in love with, and Sal was just going to throw hers away.
The lunch tray containing something that she hadn’t asked for but which carried the description ‘pavlova’ was sitting beside her untouched when Charlie arrived to collect her.
‘Let’s get you home, darling. You’ll feel much better there. Churston has given you the all-clear.’ Inside her leather bag he had packed a navy Margaret Howell skirt and pale-blue sweater. A matching set of white lace bra and pants lay on top. Looking at the insubstantial white made her think of all that blood. If only she had a pair of large, thick knickers to put on that would reach up to her waist and cover everything.
‘It’s a lovely day out there – I drove with the hood down. Oh yes … and your friend Lee called and said that he was thinking of you. I told him you’d be off for a bit.’
‘Why did you say that?’ Annie snapped. ‘You never asked me.’
‘You weren’t there to ask and surely you agree that you don’t feel up to going back to the office now?’
‘I’ll be as OK as I’m going to be, in the next day or so. It’s not as if, the longer I wait, the more likely it is that my baby is going to be alive. Is it?’ The tears started and she left them to trickle down, the soft movement on her face strangely soothing.
‘Don’t cry, love. As Churston told us, it happens all the time. I’m sure we’ll be able to have another one soon.’
‘You make it sound like we can have another holiday or another drink. But we won’t have that baby, will we? We don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.’
‘It’s probably better that way, if you think about it. We have to look ahead. Come on, darling.’ Charlie reached to help her out of the bed, where the sheets were tucked in so tight she could hardly move. ‘I’ll wait outside while you get yourself organized. I’ve picked up some videos for you to watch when you get back, so you can just relax.
Out of Africa
… I remembered that you really enjoyed that. And the girl in the store recommended
The Color Purple
… it sounded more your thing than mine.’
Annie looked out of the window at the cars below, the people walking on the pavements, the world happening, just as it always did. Except hers had stopped.
The phone rang as Kendra was standing on the top rung of a ladder daubing Polyfilla on a crack that was threatening to become a crevice in the back wall of the Chapel. It was a hassle to get down now she was up, but it might be Gioia. She never liked to miss her calls.
It was unusual for Sal to phone her at the Chapel but stranger still to hear the hesitancy in her tone. ‘I know it’s short notice. Completely last minute. But are you free this afternoon?’ Sal paused. ‘Thing is … well … I’d really like it if you could come with me.
You’re going to think this is typical, but I’m having an abortion and I thought I’d be fine about it but, now it’s come to it, I feel pathetic. I’d rather not go alone. Of course, you probably can’t. And I’ll be all right if I do have to … have to go alone.’
‘Hang on. What do you mean? Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Kendra immediately corrected herself. ‘No need to answer. We can catch up later. Where do you want me to be?’ Although this was awful for Sal, she couldn’t help acknowledging a sliver of pleasure that she was needed by her friend. Recently, she had felt she was unravelling from both Annie and Sal’s lives.
The large Edwardian building on the outer edge of London had undoubtedly been impressive in previous times but now the red-brick shell housed a sad business where nobody wanted to be. Everyone wanted to leave as soon as they could. In the reception area, the waiting patients kept eye contact to the minimum, voices low, emotions disguised. There’s a special kind of green reserved for dismal places, thought Kendra, looking at the colour of the empty chairs opposite. It was flat, toneless. If you bit into it, it would taste like stale milk.
Sal had been taken away almost immediately they arrived. She’d watched her disappear through the swing doors, shoulder bag dangling at her side. Neither of them had any idea how long they would be there. Kendra was pleased that she’d brought something to read. The sound of sobs made her look up.
‘Ssh, ssh, Dee. Let’s get you outside.’ An overweight blonde woman was clinging on to a man who was ushering her towards the exit. Aside from that, there was quiet, punctuated by the receptionist calling out appointments. Everyone jumped up instantly. Nobody wanted to hear their name called twice.
Eventually, after Kendra had eaten several packets of biscuits lying in a basket on a side table and twice walked to the front door to go for a stroll before deciding that she couldn’t leave in case Sal returned, Sal reappeared with a small plastic bag and a smile which didn’t quite reach her eyes but did a moderately convincing job of conveying relief.
‘Let’s go.’ She walked ahead, leaving Kendra following. ‘Don’t ask me. I’m OK. Really. I’m fine.’ She put on a pair of dark glasses, the bright sunshine of early summer providing both an excuse for wearing them and a glaring contrast to the grimness of the clinic and its proceedings. ‘I’m a bit sore. What time is it? I’ve lost track … What I really want is a drink.’
‘Surely that’s not a good idea. What did the doctor say?’
‘Is it likely I asked?’
‘Well, I don’t think you should drink today. Nor should you be on your own. Is there anyone in your flat tonight?’
‘Yeah. Bound to be.’ Sal worked out that, by the time they got back to Earls Court, the pub on the corner would be open. ‘I suppose I should call Annie. To thank her. She’d want to know, don’t you think?’
Kendra grabbed Sal’s arm. ‘No. Don’t do that. I forgot. I had meant to tell you, but then you rang and I thought I’d wait till later. She had a miscarriage a couple of days ago and she’s really cut up. She was past twelve weeks, so she thought she was safe, and it’s been a nightmare for her.’
Sal kept walking. ‘That’s awful. It’s so unfair, isn’t it? Poor Annie.’ She didn’t like to think about Annie’s vision, as they were lying in the park, of the baby and the garden and the pram. She was so pleased to be free of her own pregnancy, the relief was physical. All the tight worry she had felt for the past weeks was gone. She wouldn’t have to wake up one more morning knowing she was pregnant.